


Do I Wanna Know

by Veronae



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Character Study, Crushes, Developing Relationship, Feelings, Feels, First Kiss, I Don't Even Know, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Slash, Tension, first prince, why do they all have so many names this is crazy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 23:29:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20732492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veronae/pseuds/Veronae
Summary: The thing about longing, Henry realises, is it doesn’t go away. It lingers, a tide of desperate wanting with no end. It fills all the chasms in his loneliness and begins to erode them away.





	Do I Wanna Know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArchieGoodwin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArchieGoodwin/gifts).

The thing about longing, Henry realises, is it doesn’t go away.

_ Alex. _

It doesn’t go away when Alex does. It lingers in his wake, a tide of desperate wanting with no end, far deeper than Henry is brave enough to test. He locks it down tight and it fills all the chasms in his loneliness and begins to erode them away, carving ever-widening tracks. It feels as if the longing will never stop growing.

Sometimes it’s easy to ignore. It’s certainly easier when they haven’t seen each other for a long time, and it’s easier still if Henry doesn’t look at the tabloids or social media. Luckily, he doesn’t much – but Pez does, and Pez has a wide and cheerful mouth that likes to mention just how fine one half of the Claremont-Diaz siblings looks at whatever event is happening across the Atlantic.

Then an image of Alex will slip across the back of his eyes and a little thread will pull loose of his neatly sewn control, unravelling just a little, just for a little while.

Every time, Henry tries to stitch it back up with something stronger than the one before.

He is, after all, used to having impossible dreams. And Alex is certainly impossible.

As to anything else, it  _ is _ only a dream. It’s a dream that Henry does not, and will not, allow himself. An indulgence that must, by necessity, stay unfulfilled. He sees and he wonders and then he forces the thoughts away, because even the very  _ prospect  _ of hope is just too damn … well, not quite painful, but still a particular kind of agony.

It would be easier if Alex didn’t look at him the way that he does. Those dark eyes, the intense stare. Henry watches him despite himself and knows only one thing for sure: Alex doesn’t look at anyone else that way. Nobody else in the room gets that gaze.

Despite everything, Henry can’t help but provoke it. Emotional masochism seems to be his most miserable default. He wants Alex so much that any part of him will do … but Henry can only bear it for a few minutes at a time or he’s sure the need for more will drive him mad.

Unfortunately, Alex evidently has no limits – and no discernible measure of self-discipline.

_ Media face _ , Henry tells himself whenever Alex is within a ten metre radius, while the back of his mind screams  _ go away! _ and  _ please come over _ simultaneously.

He’s not sure if those thoughts manage to paint their way across his expression at his brother’s wedding, or if Alex senses them, or if maybe it’s just inevitable, but Alex approaches him. Naturally, he’s immediately antagonistic – how Alex manages to be acerbic while maintaining a gracious smile Henry will never understand. 

It all just seems to come so damn easily to Alex.

Henry wants that. He wishes he had even an iota of that impeccable, unshakeable confidence. He’ll settle for just a moment of Alex’s attention. Just one moment; he can’t bear more than that anyway. It just hurts too fucking much.

It hurts even more when Henry realises Alex has actually only come over because he’s  _ drunk _ . Disappointment washes down Henry’s spine and fills his belly with bitterness – at Alex for being an American prat, at himself for being so utterly  _ useless _ , always disrupted by the turbulence of his own mind.

“Sorry I’m not obsessed with you like everyone else…”

The words barely register through the automatic filters in Henry’s head before a reactive savageness pushes an answer past his lips: “Do you know what?” he says. “I think you are.”

Henry hadn’t realised how true the words really are until he sees Alex react – mouth parting in stunned silence, and there’s something in the cast of his eyes that gives away just how hard Henry’s hit the nail on the head.

It’s a small win, but he runs with it. He’s mostly sober and his mind works quick, and they’ve had just enough interactions that Henry knows exactly how to push Alex’s buttons. So he fucking stabs at them.

It works; he’s triumphant when Alex begins to uselessly stammer at him, but as Henry tries to walk off a hand grabs at him, and it’s not fucking  _ fair _ , it’s  _ not _ , that Alex can touch him so casually, as if it doesn’t mean  _ anything _ , as if that isn’t the very thing Henry wants most of all in his life,  _ Alex’s touch _ … and he reacts, the mask slipping for a moment as he tries to shove Alex off him.

The next thing he knows, Alex’s hands are scrabbling madly along his arm and he’s plunging face-first towards the ridiculous wedding cake … and before he can fully register what’s about to happen, it’s already happened.

Henry’s eyes burn as champagne dribbles into them, a flash of red trickling into his periphery. He feels sticky and disgusting, his cheek stings, and as his eyes fall shut Henry idly thinks,  _ there wouldn’t be so much mess if they’d used royal icing _ , and then a worse thought hits him:  _ oh, Philip’s going to give me such a bollocking _ .

But Alex’s fingers are violently twisted in his sleeve, the two of them breathless together on the ground … Henry’s mind and body are at total, immediate odds with each other and with every element of the situation and all he can manage is a groaned, “Oh my fucking Christ,” that he hopes covers everything.

<*-*>

“I fucking hate that twat,” Henry spits when Shaan presents him with his revised weekend itinerary. “Is there no way out of this?”

“Only by going through it,” Shaan replies in his smooth, measured way. He seems slightly preoccupied and Henry prickles with a slight guilt at having added to his workload. Feeling sulky, he ignores it in favour of self-pity.

This is his worst nightmare realised. Forced to be near Alex, cameras shining on them both. Henry takes vindictive pleasure in the fact that Alex has to fly all the way back across the Atlantic again … but that sputters away when he sees Alex leaning on the fence looking so effortlessly put-together.

The way Alex’s eyes sweep over Henry as he reins in the horse, the float of his dark lashes, makes his brain whirl with dizziness. There’s no way he’s going to get through this with his sanity intact. The need inside him yawns and sinks its teeth into his belly, ripping hard.

“I’m going to throw up on you,” Alex says, his polite smile belied by the fire simmering in his eyes.

Henry  _ hates  _ him. He hates Alex and the way Alex makes him feel  _ and  _ the fact that he daren’t unmount his horse in case the giddiness makes him stumble in front of the goddamn cameras. He hates the way Alex says, “Go fuck yourself,” because Henry knows that indeed yes, he will be touching himself with Alex in his thoughts and that terrible gnawing desire in his belly before he goes to sleep, if he goes to sleep.

Henry gets Pez on the phone that night.

“Why don’t you just wander into his room and try kissing him, poodle?” Pez says as Henry fumbles through his kitchen and irritably discovers that instead of stocking his freezer, all the ice creams appear to have been sent to the guest wing.

“That is the opposite of helpful,  _ Percy _ ,” Henry snaps. Sighing, he leans back against the counter.

There’s a pulsing moment of silence and then Pez’s voice again, gentle. “You need sleep. Go and put on some music and get into bed.”

“I want ice cream,” Henry says petulantly. “And there is none.”

“So in the morning have someone fired. But right now, get some sleep. You know everything is easier to handle when you’ve rested.”

“Pez…”

“Do not argue with me or I’ll have to come over there and spank your royal highness.”

Henry pauses then sighs again, scrubbing a hand across his face. “That’s better. I hate it when you’re serious.”

“Not as much as I do, Henners. Don’t make me be the voice of reason again this whole year at least, will you. I’m quite petrified it’s habit forming.”

When they hang up, Henry pads back to bed where David is settled, chewing the empty wrapper from a jaffa cake. He climbs beneath the covers and sticks his earbuds in but it’s futile. An hour later he’s still awake and craving ice cream.But it’s very late; he can sneak into the guest wing.

David Bowie is in his ears, lamenting about eternal freedom – it’s painfully liberating – when Henry stumbles into the guest kitchen and skids to a stop.

He’s not sure if it’s fatigue or the shock of Alex being there, but his brain appears to have finally decided sleeping is a good idea. Dull and empty, it simply refuses to work. “ _ Ain’t that just like me _ ,” sings Bowie traitorously as Henry nervously wrenches his earbuds out.

Alex glares at him, wide awake and at perennial advantage. Henry battles to make his brain and mouth work in tandem and fails. He’s shaken to let Alex see him like this, but if the damage is already done then he’s damn well getting a fucking Cornetto out of the deal.

Henry’s really not sure which one of them is more glad when he finally stumbles back towards the doorway, but still he’s compelled to pause. Alex is peering after him, hateful and gorgeous and Henry is struck by how …  _ comfortable  _ he appears to be with being caught unprepared. The hallway light gleams off the lenses in his spectacles – they’re not even mentioned on the fact sheet, and Henry recognises that to mean Alex doesn’t want anyone to know about them, for some reason.

Yet Alex doesn’t seem to care that Henry’s seen them. He shouldn’t be surprised; nothing is apparently sacred with Alex, even his own secrets.

“I didn’t know you wore glasses,” Henry murmurs, wondering how Alex will react. But he steps into the hallway without waiting to find out, shoves his earbuds back in and rips the Cornetto open with his teeth as he wanders back to bed.

<*-*>

It had been an absolute blessing to be away from Alex at the hospital. Henry’s entirely outraged to be shoved into a tiny cupboard with him, especially since Alex has once again sent him flying face-first into something he’d rather not be in contact with. In this case, he suspects it’s a bedpan.

They’re  _ so  _ close in the dark, so unbelievably close.

Henry’s heart thunders inside his chest. Over the disinfectant he can smell Alex’s cologne, but that’s not even the worst of it. The worst is Alex’s mouth in his fucking hair, crooning at him with a pure, sarcastic glee.

Henry hates him more than ever, and most of all he hates just how much he really doesn’t hate him. His chest splits wide and hollow as longing surges up his throat and threatens to strangle him. 

Alex is fucking  _ lying _ on him and, oh … he can’t bear it, there’s no way he’s going to make it through this without destroying himself.  _ Media face _ , Henry begs himself frantically.  _ Media face, media… _ Alex won’t fucking move. Henry throws him off and tries to scurry back, but there’s no room.

It’s almost perfectly dark, but Henry can imagine how Alex must look at this moment – tousled from the fall, stretched out all lean and probably still grinning that arrogant, entitled,  _ American _ grin … Henry wants to punch him.

He crosses his arms to fight the urge and tries to steady his breathing, which works for all of seven seconds before he makes a snide comment and receives Alex’s elbow brutally driving into the space just below his ribcage.

It hurts like a bitch, leaves him nearly winded and a fury so white it blinds him soars across Henry’s mind. He reacts, slamming Alex against the floor and pinning him down.

It’s a mistake. 

It’s very possibly the worst mistake Henry has ever made, and that includes being so obvious about his sexuality as a teenager that even his Gran noticed all the way from her high tower.

Alex’s body feels so … oh, his skin is warm … his enticing voice curls through the blackness to tease Henry’s ears … fuck, and then he  _ moves _ , wriggling beneath Henry’s thigh and he’s going to die, he’s going to combust, he’s going to  _ disgrace _ himself. 

“Aw, you do care,” Alex says. “I’m learning all your secrets today, sweetheart.”

Henry jolts away from him with a desperate breath. All his secrets are the one thing he definitely cannot afford to give to Alex.

He draws away, and the emptiness in his chest expands as he leans back. He feels colder away from Alex, and Henry knows he needs something to distract him from the swirling yearning in his blood. All he really wants is to roll back and close that gap again and make Alex put his fucking mouth to better use.

This is torture. He can’t resist it.

Alex won’t stop fucking talking and Henry wants to rattle his head against the floor again. He doesn’t trust himself to dare any type of touching. Alex doesn’t seem to think about anything before it comes out of his mouth. Henry is both awed and annoyed by it. The chasm stretches through his chest and Alex keeps talking into it, pushing it wider, so wide that Henry’s going to crack apart if it doesn’t stop somehow. 

He pushes back, asking the one question he really doesn’t know he wants answered. Reassert the animosity. Henry’s safer if they hate each other. That’s his comfort zone. 

“Do you really not remember being a prick to me at the Olympics?”

Henry’s heartbeat falters. Desperate, he digs deep in search of an old reserve to steady him.

He remembers every fucking thing about the Olympics – Alex, with Nora and June. Alex, already unfairly attractive. Alex, who approached him half-drunk with a caipirinha in his hand and a gleam in his eyes ... Alex, who reminded Henry of all the things he most hated about himself in the space of a single breath.

And Henry remembers staring like an idiot as every millilitre of blood in his body plunged towards his loins. He remembers the echo of his Gran’s disgusted words in his ears, the icy shame of defying her so immediately. And …  _ oh _ .

Alex hates him because Henry  _ made _ him.

There’s a poetic justice in that, he thinks.

It doesn’t make it hurt any less, knowing that he was sabotaging himself instinctively, accidentally, long before he intentionally made it his way of life.

<*-*>

Alex never really goes away after that weekend.

Henry tries hard, so hard, to keep some distance. His heart aches every time he checks his phone, whether there’s a message from Alex or not. He’s trapped in a web of his own making and no matter which way he tries to turn there’s another knot holding him in place. 

Alex transpires to be everything Henry thought he was, and so much more.

Arrogant yet compassionate. Intelligent but somewhat naïve. Friendly despite his belligerence. Henry’s not sure even now if the way Alex runs his mouth off is just the way he is, or if it’s something especially for him. Either way, Henry finds he still can’t help but provoke it.

Even better, Henry discovers Alex makes an excellent outlet for those moments when his anxiety bubbles up and threatens to boil his brain into mush. He blathers away, venting the prickling energy through discussion of whatever comes to mind until he wears himself out.

Alex doesn’t even seem to care. In fact, his replies are so tardy and short Henry suspects Alex has no idea what it is that Henry’s doing, and is probably bored to tears. All the same, more often than not he doesn’t tell Henry to stop. Secretly, he is very grateful.

On the other hand, Alex also has a bad habit of sending selfies from his bed, looking dishevelled and handsome, sleepy behind his reading glasses. They set Henry on fire, desire smouldering low in his belly and he stares and  _ wants  _ and ultimately always deletes them without replying. Alex in bed is not an image he needs if he wants to preserve his sanity.

Yet Alex warms to him. Not gradually but spontaneously. In amazement, Henry comes to understand him because Alex doesn’t bother to hide anything, as usual. He tries to be similarly open and it sends his heartbeat into rapid flutters because he’s never been able to by like this with anyone he fancies.

Alex says they’re not friends. Henry knows otherwise, learns the tells in the way Alex teases and flirts and insults him.

He enjoys the teasing. He returns the insults. The flirting rattles him.

Henry has no idea if Alex is genuinely attracted to him, or just a singularly cruel cock tease. He has an idea it might be both. When June invites him to the Young America Gala, his instinct is to stay away and yet he accepts anyway.

Acutely anxious about seeing Alex in person again, Henry can’t sleep at all the night before the flight. Instead he naps on the plane. When he wakes, Henry puts his feet up on the windowsill; it’s an awkward angle and his socks slip, but the stretch feels good.

“ _ C’mon, c’mon _ ,” Pez sings brightly, throwing himself into the seat beside Henry. He raises his phone, camera facing them. “ _ This is screaming photo op. _ ”

Indulging him, Henry smiles.

“You’re looking good, pigeon,” Pez says lightly as he begins fussing with his Instagram. “I do declare, sweet little Alexander is not going to know what hit him when you walk into that party.”

“I’m sure he won’t even notice me, standing next to you,” Henry yawns. 

“Well, he’d best. I’m there to ignite the passions of the fairer Claremont-Diaz. Feel free to copy my winning moves, I’m sure they’ll be of benefit to you.”

“I doubt it,” Henry says, giving him a sly sideways glance. “What do you know about pulling a guy?”

Smiling serenely, Pez doesn’t look up from the phone. “Maybe more than you’d expect, my dear.”

Henry chuckles sleepily. “You’re such a liar.”

But later, when they’re dressed and ready in the lounge area of Henry’s hotel suite, anxiety begins to tremble up his spine and he seeks Pez’s unwavering confidence. He’s not sure he can face Alex after everything they’ve come to know, all their tiny shared moments. It had been so hard to be in a room with him before. Henry’s terrified it will be impossible now.

“Dutch courage,” is Pez’s cheerful response, pouring a measure of cognac into one of the impressive balloons stored beside the mini-bar. He pushes the glass into Henry’s hand. “Here, babes. Now, if it all becomes overwhelming, just come and find me. Though I’d prefer you try and enjoy yourself at least long enough for me to woo June.”

Henry knocks the drink down and rubs his hand vaguely across his lips. “This isn’t an official thing. I could just stay here.”

“Henry, everyone knows you’re attending. Don’t overthink this, just come out and have a fun time.”

The only bit that really sticks in Henry’s ear is  _ just come out _ and he wants to roll his eyes. He manages to wait until Pez turns away. But he does wonder, and has for rather a long time, how Alex might react if Henry were to  _ just come out _ to him.

The party is in full swing when they arrive - or what Henry imagines to be full swing as he blinks around in nervous bemusement. It’s certainly more raucous than any party he’s attended since finishing university, and even then he’d never been in a crowd of such impressive number. 

His eyes scope through the crowd and he sees June pointing towards them … then Henry’s gaze shifts and a treacherous grin breaks across his face, warmth blossoming in his chest, drowning his stress but leaving an entirely different type of panic in its wake.

His hand tightens on Pez’s arm and he’s moving towards Alex like a moth to a flame, a fatalistic pull that he can’t fight, that he  _ has to _ fight, but he can’t, he can’t manage it. He needs to be where Alex is, it’s chemical, it’s magnetic. He can’t stop himself.

Pez smiles, leans in close as they stride across the room. “I may not know how to get a man into bed,” he murmurs against Henry’s cheek. “But I know ‘fuck me’ eyes when I see them.”

Pulse beating double-time, Henry doesn’t have the breath to answer.

“Nice tie,” Alex greets him, and Henry’s heart skips a beat. The twang of Alex’s accent is tempered by a slur of whiskey, his voice a little hoarse. It pours through Henry’s ears and settles somewhere low in his belly, fluttering and hot and oh god, he’s done for. All he wants is to lunge forward and stick his tongue in Alex’s mouth, see what that does to his smart-talking fuckery. 

_ Media face _ , Henry warns himself. He gives a flippant answer, deliberately restrained as he battles to keep control of himself.  _ Media fucking face _ .

He’s glad when Pez slides between them. It’s only for a moment, but it’s enough for Henry to gird himself and they both know it. He’s grateful as well when Pez steals into the crowd of dancing bodies with June, who, Henry notices, does not seem to mind his attention at all.

Making some vague comment about Pez, Henry grins when Alex laughs. It spirals into his brain and leaves him lightheaded. He tries spotting on the exposed softness of Alex’s throat, but unsurprisingly it does nothing to help the giddiness pass. Henry’s going to have to get drunk to override it.

People stare as Alex parades him around. Henry hates it, but he can’t seem to pull himself out of Alex’s gravity. He’s in orbit, being drawn in by something bigger than himself, dizzy from the force of it. Oh, it’s so almost perfect.

Henry follows while Alex mingles, and enjoys when June commandeers him. The night stays almost perfect right up until Alex touches his hips and tries to make him dance. 

For at some point, without quite noticing how, Henry has managed to become drunk enough that his own hands feel like foreign objects, yet not quite so drunk that Alex isn’t supremely arousing to watch on the dance floor. He’s doing truly marvellous things with his hips.

Henry wants him to do those marvellous things with him. Dreamlike, his mind offers a few random images of how Alex might look out of his plush velvet suit ... so he flinches when Alex unexpectedly reaches out and grabs his hips.

_ How  _ can it be so easy for him, so easy to touch and feel nothing. Henry’s gut pulls tight, and then Nora spirals out of the crowd and grabs Alex, pulls him away, and gets all those wonderful hip movements as her reward.

Ice cracks inside Henry’s chest, and the shards pierce his heart. 

It only gets worse from there, almost perfect becoming complete and ever-growing misery.

Henry tries but can’t read Alex, can’t decipher the behaviour. Alex and Nora move together, their bodies blatantly familiar to each other, and fragmentary arguments begin to bargain with Henry, but he can’t quite grasp anything that feels rational or logical or sensible. So instead, Henry does something insensible, and grabs a bottle of champagne. Perhaps he can drink enough to forget that Alex even exists. It’s never worked before, and tonight does not appear lucky for him after all, but anything is possible.

Blurring the roar of hot jealousy with the chilled fizz of wine, Henry’s confusion increases when he notices Alex is watching him. His eyes are dark under the strobing lights, blown wide with alcohol, but they sharpen when Henry wraps his lips around the mouth of the champagne bottle, when he slides his fist around the neck to tip it up.

This is something he’s done deliberately in the past to get someone into bed, not that it’s his current intention, not when Alex is pressing his arse against Nora, smoothing his hands up her bare arms. But he’s  _ staring _ at Henry, catching his eyes with a brilliant smiling happiness.

Henry has no idea what the fuck is happening.

At midnight, Alex kisses Nora. He’s laughing, joyful, enjoying himself, everything Henry isn’t, everything Henry wants to be. Of course Alex would kiss  _ someone _ at midnight, and  _ of course _ it was never going to be him … but Henry burns. He watches the shift of Alex’s mouth against Nora’s skin, and electricity sparks through his blood, igniting the copious amounts of alcohol he’s diluted it with ... and Henry realises in a flash of sorrow that he’d hoped far more than he’d dared admit to himself.

That hope dashes itself into despair and Henry cannot take another minute. He turns and slips away, drains the bottle of champagne and abandons it on a table before slinking away from the party and outside, into the brisk winter nighttime.

The cold is bracing, steadying, just uncomfortable enough to ground him. Henry shoves his hands into his pockets and tries one of the techniques he’s been taught to counteract anxiety. Turning his face towards the sky, he attempts to locate the constellations, but his mind is so distracted and his feelings so hurt and his body so drunk that it’s quite a long time before he realises that there are no stars at all, only a blanket of dense cloud. Another disappointment then. 

Pendulous and oppressive, the clouds feel almost like a security blanket, like Henry could let the bubbles in his champagne-blood carry him upwards until he could wrap himself in their comfort. Maybe above the world his troubles wouldn’t find him.

Perhaps there’s a gap somewhere. Henry stares at the sky, trying to find a single spot for a bright star to shine through. He keeps staring until the thunder of his emotions finally begins to dull.

That’s when Alex finds him.

Of course he does. Henry’s having that kind of life.

Henry doesn’t even know why Alex is here, but he’s not really surprised. He just fucking wants Alex to go away, which is of course not how Alex operates. Henry resists him.

Alex leans against the tree beside him, nudges their shoulders together and there’s something in the touch, something in his uncharacteristic silence, that offers support without it needing to be explicitly verbalised, a show of … not quite understanding, but of  _ solidarity _ .

The longing begins again, surging and painful. It cools the heat of his jealousy, twisting around his heart until it has to beat at a gallop just to keep his blood running. The pressure builds, throbs into his brain, drums against his ears.

Alex needs to stop touching him. Henry can’t bear it. He doesn’t move away.

Maybe, if he just explains the huge impossibility of his life, Alex  _ will _ understand. Despite everything, Henry wants him to understand. And maybe, if Alex is appalled and the whatever-it-is between them is actually  _ nothing  _ after all, then perhaps he’ll send Henry away and that will be the end of it.

One way or another, this stalemate needs to end.

It has to end. Henry has to end it.

Alex of course laughs and misunderstands, because that’s their pattern, has been for years, their default way of interacting. But he just doesn’t seem to  _ get it _ , what Henry’s trying to tell him. It’s so important though,  _ huge  _ and soul-encompassing, thumping against his temples, screaming through his veins.

There’s no gap in the clouds, no bright star to focus on. There is only Alex, with his dark eyelashes under a dark sky, blinking up at Henry with lips parted in bafflement, and suddenly Henry’s body decides what the answer is. Without pausing to check with his brain that the idea is a good one, Henry vents his frustration in a vague insult. “Christ, you are as thick as it gets,” he says, and resolves all the tension and trouble and confusion between them in one simple move: he grabs Alex’s face in both hands and kisses him.

Oh god, it’s a mistake, but it’s the  _ best  _ mistake he’s ever made. In the space of one heartbeat to the next, Alex leans into him and kisses him back and that’s all it takes for Henry to lose himself entirely.

Everything stops. He can’t hear the deafening throb of his blood anymore, can’t feel the cold biting at his fingers, can’t remember all the early stressors plaguing his evening … there is only Alex. Warm and firm, his mouth locked with Henry’s, opening to him.

His tongue slides between Alex’s lips, sweeps into his mouth. He tastes like smooth whiskey, warm and inviting and Henry drowns in sensation, surrenders himself as Alex instantly yields to him. It’s so much bigger than he had ever imagined, impossible and all-consuming. The night whirls around him, filled with forgotten details. Henry shifts towards the stability of Alex’s body, his steady warmth and it makes him want so much more.

Sliding a hand up Alex’s neck, Henry grabs his hair to drag him closer … and Alex makes some desperate sound that jolts him back to his senses with a frightening rapidity. He thrusts Alex away from him, stomps backwards, eyes wide and blurred as he tries to fix on Alex’s gaping expression. “Jesus fucking Christ,” Henry mumbles, barely hearing himself. “Fuck, sorry, I…”

He’s altogether too sober and absolutely nowhere near sober enough. The shock of what he’s just done propels him away before Alex can respond, stamping off on stumbling steps through the slippery crunch of ice, fuelled with alcoholic fervour.

Everything is going to be so much worse now, now Henry has some fractional idea of what he’s missing. His chest splits with an aching yearning, the conflicted desire to go back and shove Alex against the tree and kiss him again, to feel whiskey-tinted lips move across his skin. 

Henry forces it down, because it’s insane.

He has to get away, and now, before Alex comes after him. They can’t afford to make another scene and he simply cannot bear to see that habitual hatred levelled at him again, reignited and more precise. No, Henry will run away from it, The fallout can keep until there are several thousand miles between them. It’ll be safer then. Easier when they’re apart, as it’s always been.

Reaching the door, Henry pauses for a moment long enough to rehitch his stumbling control.  _ Media face _ , Henry begs himself with despairing sternness, breath shivering in the air around him.  _ Media face _ . 

Saying a silent goodnight to the bracing chill, to Alex standing by the sleeping tree, Henry slides back inside to find Pez.


End file.
